


The mark

by Avidfangirlforlife



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 05:45:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15834957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avidfangirlforlife/pseuds/Avidfangirlforlife
Summary: Soulmate AU. In which Delia is marked with Patsy's name and the first sentence she will ever say to her.





	The mark

On the morning of your seventeenth birthday, you wake up to the most tremendous pain in the region of your left hip. It radiates out from there, tendrils of searing pain spreading across your left side, white hot and sharp.

It makes you think of cattle branding. You find yourself surprised that you can’t smell the scent of burning flesh. The pain of it makes you think of when you had knocked a hot coal from the fire onto your leg. Something about it makes your throat tighten and your head swim in much the same way.

Slowly, as the minutes after you waking tick away, the pain recedes. You find that you can breathe again.

Even after the pain has fully subsided, even after it has completely passed, you find yourself unwilling to get out of bed. You know that if you do curiosity will get the better of you. Curiosity will get the better of you, and you will have to look.

You don’t want to look. Maybe it counts as you being cowardly, but you don’t want to look. If you look, you have to acknowledge what the pain meant, and that might just send you into a blind panic. You know what the pain meant. Every part of you knows what that pain meant.

It meant that you had been marked. Fate or destiny or perhaps some higher force had marked you with someone’s name. And if you get out of bed you will have to look and see whose name it is. You can’t decide whether being cursed was a blessing or a curse.

When you look, you know that there will be a signature and a sentence sprawled across your hip. Those two lines will mean that your entire world will change. It won’t matter whether you mean for it to or not, but it will. Every exchange you have with a stranger will be altered, especially if the name on your hip is something like John Smith or David Williams. You’re not sure you’re ready for that yet.

Ma and da are up by this point, you can hear them moving around, bustling around the kitchen. The only day they let you sleep in, every year, is on your birthday. Ma has always instilled in you that idle hands are how the devil gets you. You find yourself thankful that they haven’t burst in yet, because your certain the panic and indecision are written all over your face.

Anxiously, you lay and stare at the ceiling, biting your lip for all you are worth. You’re not sure what to do. Nausea gnaws away at you, because this is a moment you have both anticipated and dreaded ever since names had started appearing on your friends six years ago.

The name isn’t something you will be able to ignore, now that you know it is there. In the end you make yourself get up, even if you are very halting in your movements, and you move to stand in front of the mirror. Sod it, you think, as you reach for the hem of your nightgown. You lift it up to your waist,

For a moment, you almost hope that it isn’t there. And then you see it, because it is very much there. Curving around your hip bone is a name, written in bold. It is as plain as the nose on your face.  
You move closer to the mirror, contorting your torso into an uncomfortable shape so that you can get a better look at the name. After a moment you find an angle that works and your breath catches in you throat. Plain as day and not at all shy in its’ appearance is the name Patience Mount. It is now branded upon your body. Patience Mount. The name of your soulmate.

Just thinking the name brings a brief smile to your lips. No other two words could ever sound more like home to your teenage self. However, the smile is quite fleeting and short lived. You realise that it is the name of a girl. A girl. You are destined to fall in love with a girl, and there is very little you can do to stop it. It is fated. The thought makes the smile fall right off your face. You don’t think you’ll ever be allowed to love a girl.

Over the course of the next four years, you find that a lot changes for you. For a start, you leave the family farm, the only place you have ever called home. You leave Ma and Da in the big farmhouse alone, and you leave behind the comforting sight of a never ending amounts of sheep. You leave the quiet and the green and all you have ever known. You leave and you find yourself missing it, but that doesn’t compel you to return.

Nothing makes you want to return home. Not when Ma spends all of her energy trying to find you a husband. Every opportunity she gets is spent finding you a husband. All you have to look forward to in Pembrokeshire is a husband and keeping house for the next forty years. Not when you know with every bone in your body that all you want to do with your life is nurse. Not when, deep down, you know that if you stayed something would be missing. You would never be happy.

Two weeks after your nineteenth birthday you move to London and begin training as a nurse. London is like another planet to you, because it is so very different to home. You live outside a quiet village, and that is all you have ever known. London is busy and full and bustling. It takes some getting used to, even when you try to force yourself to adapt. Adapting is much harder than you expected it to be.  
You find that it isn’t just London either. It’s the people too. Londoners are always in such a rush. Then there is the hospital, as well. It is clinical and detached unto the last. And you know that such an atmosphere doesn’t quite fit with your personality. The hours are long and hard and draining. Continually, you find yourself being reprimanded by matron for being too attached to patients.

The other trainee nurses look down on you. Though you aren’t quite sure why, you know they do. You can feel it. Such a thing makes it incredibly difficult for you to make friends and you suffer under the lack of a genuine connection. Having no one makes the loneliness all the more apparent to you.

Eventually, you reach a point where it feels as though you are barely keeping your head above water. Slowly, you can feel yourself sinking when you should be swimming. A part of you wishes that you could just give up and return home to Wales. You wish that you could just marry the lad that Ma has set her cap at for you. But you don’t.

For some reason you persevere, even though the going is tough. And you find that you start to adjust. It doesn’t get all that much easier. The loneliness takes bites out of you in the middle of the night, when you are supposed to be sleeping. The long hours and lack of sleep leave you drained and aching. The gossiping of the other girls makes you irritable. But you cope. Every morning you get up and patch yourself back together. A part of you thinks that it is just to prove that you can.

Never mind the reason, somehow you muddle along. Something in you tells you that this is where you need to be. Deep down, somewhere deep within your soul, you know that this is what will make you happy. Nursing is all you have ever wanted to do with your life. You want to care for the sick and help others in whatever way you can.

Even if long and gruelling hours don’t make you happy, then at least you are satisfied. When you write home to Ma and Da, in those long first months, you make sure to tell them how wonderful London is. You tell them about how much you are learning. In every letter you make sure to use the word happy at least twice.

One day, about midway into your second year of training, you draw the short straw in rotation. You find yourself placed on male surgical. Cursing and grumbling to yourself, you are making your way there when you just so happen to raise your head. It just so happens that you meet the eyes of a blonde nurse, and so what if the eye contact lasts for just a fraction of a second too long? And so what if you spend the rest of your shift in a happy daze, despite the numerous amount of male patients who are just a little bit too friendly?

Almost as though determined by fate, you see the blonde nurse working on male surgical the next day. The fact that she is there makes you smile. Absently, you take note of the fact that she is taller than most. And prettier than most, almost unnaturally so.

The day after that, you find yourself volunteering to take an extra day on male surgical. The other girls look at you as though you have sprouted a third eye in the middle of your forehead. A part of you isn’t sure what you’re thinking. Then, when you don’t see the blonde nurse, you find each and every minute of your shift dragging.

After that, things return to normal for you. The blonde nurse occupies you less. At least, less than she had been. Mostly because you don’t even have time to pause for breath. A few weeks later, it is your turn on the ward again. You definitely don’t spend the time leading up to this thinking of the blonde nurse and whether or not she might want to be friends.

On the morning of your shift on male surgical, as you get changed into your uniform, your eyes catch the mark on your left hip in the mirror. You let yourself say the name out loud and it makes your lips quirk up into a smile. It has been an absolute age since you let yourself dwell on it. You’ve come to terms with it, after all this time. It’s been a part of you for three years, and yet nothing has happened yet.

Somehow, you find yourself running late. Which, in itself, isn’t an odd occurrence. After all, you’re not the most prompt of people. What makes it odd is that you gave yourself plenty of time for once. You have exactly fifteen seconds until your shift is due to start when you push through the doors and into the ward. Almost perfectly on time, you find yourself panting from all of the running (something you hope Matron never finds out about).

For a moment you let yourself pause, so that you can try and catch your breath, and it is then that you hear footsteps coming towards you. Dread courses through you, because it would be just your luck for it to be Matron approaching. Then you hear the footsteps, and you know that it isn’t her (early on you had been sure to memorise her footsteps).

You let yourself look up, hoping that it is just another nurse and not someone more senior. The footsteps stop by you and you find yourself face to face with the blonde nurse. She opens her mouth to say something, possibly to voice a query. The words that leave her lips have you gaping at her like a fool.

“Running a little late?”

A burning sensation spreads across your hip, white hot and sharp, so intense that for a second you are worried about fainting. Your hand flies from your side, and you know that you are openly gaping at her. You are at a complete loss of words. The blonde nurse’s smirk is replaced with a look of worry, concern shining in her eyes and you hurry to catch yourself. Straightening, you try to ignore the pain in your side that seems intent on not receding.

“Something like that. I lost track of time, is all.”

Her face twitches slightly, tensing for just a moment. For a second, for just a moment, you allow yourself to wonder. It passes, so quickly that it could have been imagined, and she introduces herself as Patsy. Something settles itself at the base of your spine. Disappointment, you think, as you feel its’ cold fingers snake their way down your spine. Because, the burning pain tells you that you have finally found her. The woman you have been searching for. And she hadn’t reacted in the same way as you.

Still, you try your very best to shake it off. Loving woman isn’t seemly or often done. So you decide to ignore your disappointment and shake off your proclivities. Because you find yourself needing to make a good impression, you think you may need this woman in your life.

Somehow, the two of you strike up a fast friendship. You end up spending an awful lot of time together. In the evenings you drink together and you go to the pictures and you take walks in the parks. Soon, you find that you can’t imagine your life without her. Patsy helps you to stave off the loneliness that has been your constant companion. She shakes off the loneliness that perpetually seems to inhabit your soul.

Patsy is the best sort of person. She is reserved and prim and proper and closed off. But she is also kind and caring and funny and beautiful. The two of you are so close and yet she is so far out of your reach. You think you must be in love with her. If that isn’t something you can ever admit then you won’t mind all that much.

Yes, a part of you will always long for her like that, but she is more than enough. Having her in your life is more than enough. After all, she has allowed you to get close to her in a way that no one else seems to have before.

Finally, after what feels like an age, you finish your training. You find yourself as the newest nurse on Male Surgical. Groping hands and obscene comments from the recovering men don’t bother you half as much when you and Patsy work the same shift. 

For once, you and Patsy decide to join the other nurses to go out and celebrate. Most of the other girls in the Nurses’ Home get ready together, both you and Patsy are very insistent on not doing that. Of course, this makes the others whisper about you, but the rumours are worth it.

After all, it isn’t like you can get changed in front of Patsy. You have her name imprinted on you in bold lettering. She would see it, plain as day, and then where would you be? You’re glad that Patsy is a very private person as well. You’re not sure that you could convince yourself to look away from her. Which would be both awkward and bad mannered of you.

In the end, the two of you go out separately from the other girls. You spend a few hours at the pub around the corner before returning to your room. You’ve both been drinking more then would be advisable and then you drink some more. Why not? You are celebrating and there is every other night to adhere to the rules.

Before long, the two of you have devolved into giggling. It’s in a rather undignified manner that you’re glad your Ma can’t see, but you can’t quite bring yourself to care. Eventually, your laughter fades away. In the silence that follows your eyes meet and the way she looks at you sobers you up completely. Without looking away, she kisses you, and you find yourself smiling beneath her lips. Neither of you pull away.

Eventually, you pull away. Patsy’s face crumples in pain that for once, she is not quick enough to hide. You would take a guess at it being the alcohol. Clutching at her shoulder, she mumbles a word that you weren’t even aware she knew. Her face is scrunched up and you can almost feel her pain. It is so incredibly tangible and the concern you feel for her goes beyond ordinary levels of worry.

“Pats, what’s wrong?” Your voice is gentle, coloured by concern, as is your touch against her arm.

There is a silence that is just a touch too long before she answers you. It is almost as if she is afraid to admit it. “My shoulder. It hurts.” Her face is still twisted in a pained grimace as she talks to you.  
“What sort of pain is it?” You try your absolute hardest to keep your voice gentle and soft.

She hesitates for even longer than the first time before she answers you. When she does finally respond, there is something reluctant in her response. “It’s a burning pain Deels, absolutely nothing to worry about. It’ll pass.” 

You can hear the effort she is putting into keeping her voice level. You go to speak, to respond, but you find that your voice catches in your throat. You fight to control the way your bottom lip wobble. You snag it between your teeth and take a deep breath, composing yourself before you can bring yourself to ask the question you need answered. “Burning?”

Somehow, she knows exactly what you are asking. Through her pain she turns to look at you fully. She really looks at you, in a way that you have only ever read about. In a way that you have dreamed about her looking at you for a little under two years. Staring into your very soul, or so it feels.

She sighs before she shifts. You watch as her hand comes up to the buttons of her shirt. Your breath catches once again as she begins to undo the buttons on the front of her checked shirt. She pulls the shirt to just below her shoulder blade.

Before your eyes is a name and a sentence, and your mouth dries even as your eyes begin to water. A feeling quite a lot like joy begins to rise up within you, and a disbelieving sob escapes you. After all this time, your deepest desire is coming true before you. It seems almost dreamlike.

Your hand finds its way to Patsy’s covered shoulder of its’ own accord. You find yourself squeezing it. Her hand rises to clasp yours, and she tangles your fingers together, intertwining them. Your hands fit together so well, and you remember that this was fated. In its own way, this was fated. A feeling of happiness settles over you as you stare at your own name, scrawled haphazardly across Patsy’s shoulder blade.

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I wrote a couple years ago and posted on fanfic.net, but I sort of took it and edited it and thought I'd post it here.


End file.
